Murphy: When theme songs stick

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I arrived for training one day during pre-season training in 2010 smelling of vomit and dirty nappies.

I couldn’t see it on my clothes or on my bag, but the smell, though subtle, was unmistakable.

At the time, my wife and I had a two-year-old boy and a newborn baby girl in the house. This is the lot for parents with little kids in the house.

These smells are so commonplace that I think they eventually get into your sinuses and it’s there that they settle. Was the smell inside me?

I spoke with Age journalist Martin Flanagan a few years back and I asked him what he could remember of the 1980’s? He replied without hesitation, “I can’t remember the 80’s, I was raising kids!”

There’s some truth to that. 2010 is very foggy for me and my little family. No one got much sleep that year.

One enduring memory I have from that time though, came back to me this week. I used to sing the Port Adelaide theme song to my babies.

Now, I need to be careful here. Let’s set the record straight. I used to sing the Bulldogs theme song to my little darlings as well, but after sitting up with a crying or restless baby for over an hour, I needed to expand the setlist for my own sanity.

My back catalogue for the classic nursery rhymes wasn’t as vast as it perhaps could’ve been. After gently humming a few of the classics and stealing my own mother’s preferred choice of ‘the carnival is over’, I started singing through the theme songs of the AFL clubs as my little ones lay on my lap reaching for my nose.

I often wonder if there are people out there who did the same thing. I bet there are a few. I’m not sure if Port Adelaide’s anthem is the best song in the league (aside from the Dogs’, it’s pretty hard to go past the Tigers, isn’t it?), but the Power’s song worms its way into my brain the quickest.

“We are the Power from Port! It’s more than a sport!” The rhythm of it just appeals to my brain. I don’t fully understand it myself.

Around this time, we played Port Adelaide at the Docklands under the roof. After the Power ran onto the ground that damn song once again wormed its way into my head.

Regrettably, during the first quarter I was humming it to myself, when my Port Adelaide opponent looked over his shoulder at me with a look on his face that was a curious mix of hysteria and disgust.

I often got a song stuck in my head during a game of football, and it was rarely a song of my choosing, but this was new territory; I was now SINGING IT OUT LOUD DURING A GAME!

The Bulldogs take on the Power this Thursday night at Adelaide Oval. Like many of you, I will be watching it on the television, but I will have the sound turned off.